Today is the day for Irish people to contemplate the complexities of our place in the world. Fifty-seven years ago this morning, Allied troops landed in France, and in their ranks were many hundreds, if not thousands, of Irishmen, all of them volunteers. Probably a hundred or so Irish soldiers died on the landing grounds, the beaches or in the bocages, those vile, high hedgerows of Normandy, this day in 1944. Irish airmen patrolled above, and Irish sailors manned the warships standing offshore and guided the landing craft ferrying the invasion forces to the beaches
The very first Allied soldiers to land in France were glider-borne assault troops of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who seized and held Pegasus Bridge, which bore a vital road to the imminent beachhead. About 10 per cent - the best 10 per cent, according to their commander, the late John Howard - were Irish. One of the gliders which landed with inch-perfect precision beside the bridge was flown by an Irishman named Oliver Boland.
Parachute drop
Next to arrive were the 9th Battalion Parachute Battalion, led by Lt-Col Terence Otway, from Tipperary, and containing large numbers of Irishmen, recruited from the Ulster Rifles. It was tasked to take the guns of Merville Battery which commanded the British and Canadian beaches of Juno, Gold and Sword. The parachute drop was woefully off-target, with many men drowning in nearby bogs. The survivors assembled, and despite their small number, assaulted and took their objective. Terence Otway, still alive, thank God, this day is being honoured with the Legion D'Honneur by the French Government - at Merville Battery itself.
The German defences on the beach beneath Merville were being systematically reduced within hours by a single tank of the Royal Engineers, just about the sole survivor of its troop which had been massacred on landing. That tank was commanded by Capt Redmond Cunningham from Waterford, son of John Redmond's election agent. The first infantrymen ashore there belonged to the Second Battalion the Royal Ulster Rifles, led by Lt-Col Ian Harris, also from Tipperary, advancing inland towards the First Battalion of the same regiment, which had already landed by glider.
What were these Irishmen doing there? Were they simply mercenaries? Were they dedicated anti-Nazis? Were they fools? Were they unprincipled adventurers? Or were they following vestigial imperial loyalties? No doubt all of these terms might be applied individually to those Irish combatants who helped inch forward the cause of freedom; but whatever the particular motivation of each person, we can see a clear division between those who were liberating and those who were being liberated.
Political cultures
The forces that landed this morning 57 years ago came largely from common-law anglophone countries with similar political cultures. Even newly independent and neutral Ireland, so many of whose sons were now individually contributing to European freedom, recognisably belonged to that comity of nations, which shared so much and between which both ideas and trade moved with ease and speed.
Shared then and share today. Is it coincidental that Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada (whose entirely voluntary sacrifices on June 6th, 1944 are largely forgotten beyond its wide shores), Australia and New Zealand today all enjoy a low-tax, small-government political culture? All have economically reinvented themselves in the past 20 years by cutting taxes, while mainland Europe has stifled beneath the weight of dirigiste governments addicted to taxation and spending. The result? Anglophone countries of the world have approximately twice the growth and half the rate of unemployment of mainland Europe.
Tomorrow we vote on our future. That we are even able to do so is due to those young men who, 57 years ago this morning, were vomiting in terror and seasickness as machine-gun fire drummed against their landing-craft doors. And though we are enthusiastic Europeans today, like it or not, we also remain part of that other world, the English-speaking world which perished or prevailed when those doors finally dropped into the Normandy surf.
Our anglophone histories intertwine: we largely share the same political values and legal systems, and we contribute to and draw from the same cultural well. If the EU dirigistes wish once day to impose tax conformity on Ireland, we should be prepared, regretfully, to opt once again for life offshore with the anglophones, not with the mainland.
We are anyway going to have to recognise the geopolitical truth that we are a European people living in an Anglo-American sea. As NATO spreads east to embrace Poland and Hungary, it is clearly absurd that we should pretend that it's none of our business, or that there is some benign other option, a European Rapid Reaction Force, free of US involvement. A stand-alone European army without US intelligence and US political will is worthless. It is Srebenice.
Pious nonsense
Unlike the neutrality which was declared out of national self-interest in 1939, our present "neutrality" is pious nonsense. Yet despite its absurdities, it has so infused our political culture that we have a self-appointed caste of professional neutralists, green redemptorists unceasingly shrieking that they can detect the vice of NATO in every foreign policy initiative. The caterwauling holier-thanthouness of these sanctimonious bullies has so far prevented any proper discussion on neutrality. It's 2001: time to talk realities. So, Yes to Nice, but with a watchful eye on the harmonising megalomania of the EU taxing masters. And next, Yes to NATO. This is the actual world we live in, one of armed democracies, which took the sword of freedom to mainland Europe 57 years ago today.